Windows Live Hotmail Is too Hot

Microsoft is renaming its Windows Live Mail service as Windows Live Hotmail. Previously, the company planned to move away from Hotmail to a newer service branded Windows Live Mail.

"We started from scratch and built a whole new service from the ground up--and we called this Windows Live Mail," Richard Sim, Live Mail senior product manager, wrote in a blog post today. However, some customers "were a bit confused by name change."

The name change mixes the old and new for, from a branding perspective, one ugly name--Windows Live Hotmail. Then again, this is the company that calls its major browser Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows (insert XP or Vista). Double Windows in the same name? Please, somebody whip out the Chicago Manual of Style.

"Microsoft has long been brand challenged," said Roger Kay, founder of Endpoint technologies. "It's kind of tone deaf in the brand department. Zune was supposed to cure them of the old branding stuff, where they feel like they have to put everything--including the kitchen sink--in the brand name, and it has to be descriptive."

The turnabout also contradicts most of the objectives Microsoft previously stated it wanted to achieve with the new mail service, emphasis on new.

With Windows Live Mail, Microsoft wanted to separate from technological and brand baggage tied to Hotmail, which the company acquired almost a decade ago.

Windows Live Mail would use newer technologies on the back end and AJAX on the front end to deliver a fresh and modern e-mail experience. Hotmail would continue for a time, possibly even years, and then go away as a service.

Larry Grothaus, Microsoft's group product manager for Windows Live and MSN, defended the branding changes.

"Based on the feedback we've received from customers, we believe delivering a name that bridges the Webmail experience they've known for years as Hotmail and the new experiences they have under Windows Live is the right choice," he said.

A second set of negative connotations hobble the Hotmail brand, however.

"I always felt that if my wife knew that if I had a Hotmail account, she would wonder what I was doing with it," Kay said. "It just happens that hot is a heavily colonized word in the English language. It seemed like it was a good thing it was going away."

The new name accentuates negative connotations.

"It sounds kinda like an illicit service of some sort," Kay emphasized. "I mean, what comes to mind when you say the words 'hot' and 'live?'"

Kay continued, "Live is supposed to depict the whole cloud-based services--software as service thingy."

Other Microsoft groups dare to go where Windows Live has retreated. The Office 2007 user interface is gutsy because so much is new and there is no way back. In November, Julie Larson-Green, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Windows Experience Program Management, said that rather than include a classic mode with Office 2007, the decision was made to "pull people forward." If Office can make the leap forward, why does Windows Live have to make the leap back?

Microsoft had planned on a migration period that could easily have satisfied existing Hotmail customers.

Microsoft's timing is fascinating and maybe deliberate. Yesterday, Google's Gmail became available to everyone, but remains in perpetual beta.

Who are these customers that are so attached to Hotmail? Microsoft wouldn't say, but it's not hard to guess. Worldwide, about half of Hotmail users are small businesses, according to Microsoft. Windows Live Mail is the e-mail service for Office Live, which also caters to small businesses. The small business is a likely place where the brands and any problematic technology transitions may meet.